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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758179">Unstuck</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonkorok/pseuds/neonkorok'>neonkorok</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Legend of Zelda &amp; Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Can be read as Legend/Marin if you want, Dancing in the Rain, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hate to disappoint but Marin isn't coming back, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Legend gets some feels as he watches the rain, Legend just has to come to terms with that, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Moving On, Remembering those you once loved, Sky is there to help him feel a bit better, and I think he does pretty well, because he will be, but that's not the focus, enjoy, even if he isn't quite okay just yet, one day</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:13:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,788</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758179</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonkorok/pseuds/neonkorok</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Legend still hasn't quite moved on from his last journey—how could he? Marin is dead, Koholint was never real, and now he's stuck to deal with the consequences, but he's not as alone as he thinks. Sky shows him that Marin's memory doesn't just have to be one of darkness and pain, and teaches him to use her words not to bring anguish to his life, but to make it all the more beautiful instead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Four &amp; Hyrule &amp; Legend &amp; Sky &amp; Time &amp; Twilight &amp; Warriors &amp; Wild &amp; Wind (Linked Universe), Legend &amp; Sky (Linked Universe), Legend (Linked Universe) &amp; Marin (Legend of Zelda), Link &amp; Marin (Legend of Zelda)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unstuck</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/macarooni/gifts">macarooni</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>WHOO this one wasn't coming to me for a while but then I sat down and pounded it all out in one sitting so HERE YOU GO.</p><p>This is a gift for the Solstice Swap on the LU Art &amp; Writing Exchange Discord server for cinnamontoastcronch, so I hope you enjoy, pal! Your prompts were amazing and I kind of just took bits and pieces from a few of them and ran with it, so hopefully this isn't too far off from what you wanted :ᴅ</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s horribly cliché, but the rain reminds him of her. Not in the conventional way where one thinks of a long-lost lover and stares morosely into the downpour, wishing that things had turned out differently, but in the way that one looks out upon a common experience and wishes that a friend who’s no longer around had been able to experience it with them.</p><p>For all the time that he had been on Koholint, it had never once rained. He wasn’t even sure if the sun had set, but he hadn’t exactly been paying attention to that while on his frantic quest to save the inhabitants of the island (only to doom them in the end anyway). As such, he didn’t think that Marin had ever experienced the joy of dancing in the rain, feeling the droplets form and glide across her skin as she let go and let herself feel free. He wonders, if it had rained on Koholint, whether she would have felt like she was flying as she twirled and leaped through the rain. He likes to think she would have.</p><p>It’s raining now, in Wild’s Hyrule, which makes him think such things. He feels like such a sap, but he just can’t help it. The rain lands heavily on the thin shelter of the stables, but, in the distance, he can just make out the orange glow of sunset over the distant mountains. It sets an odd mixture of longing and peace in his heart, and all he can do is sit on the small step at the entrance of the tent and stare at that warm glow.</p><p>It’s a long time before the sun finally sets and the rain finally passes and he finally drags himself up to do something to distract himself from the pain he feels. Most of the other inhabitants of the small inn are fast asleep, including most of his companions. Only the manager of the stables, that merchant the others had all seemed to find familiar, and Sky still remain awake. The manager is peering out into the darkness, waiting to see if any last stragglers will come by requiring his assistance, and Beedle is jotting something down in a notebook resting on his lap. Sky, however, is looking straight at Legend. He gestures for him to sit at the small table on the far end of the room, and Legend slowly makes his way over, careful not to disturb those sleeping around them.</p><p>“You seem sad.” Sky says once Legend finally sits down. “Do you want to talk about it?”</p><p>Legend gives him a small smirk. “Did you wait up just to ask little old me if I was okay?”</p><p>Sky, rather than taking the bait, simply shrugs. “Maybe. So are you going to let me know what’s up or can I finally join the others in sleep?”</p><p>That takes Legend by surprise, and he’s quiet for a few moments as he tries to compose himself. He clears his throat once he’s sure that nothing sentimental will slip out without his consent if he opens his mouth.</p><p>“The rain.” he starts stiltedly. “It, uh. It reminds me of someone. Someone I lost, a long time ago.”</p><p>Sky nods, his gaze flickering over to the inky blackness of the outside world through the nearest entryway. “Tell me about them.” he requests when no more words are forthcoming.</p><p>“She was…she was the sweetest person I’ve ever met, I think. The kindest, the smartest, the most creative. She used to talk all the time about how she wanted to become a seagull, fly away into the distance and be free. I think she felt trapped, where she was. I don’t blame her. I did, too.”</p><p>Sky listens attentively, and Legend is grateful that he isn’t interrupting. He doesn’t think he could get through this if Sky was asking questions.</p><p>“She would sing all the time, these beautiful songs that could make you feel like all of your troubles had just melted away. She was great at distracting people when they were sad, and keeping them in good spirits when they were happy. Her life wasn’t perfect, but she never once complained, though she would listen to me whenever I ranted about my own issues.”</p><p>Legend trails off after that, and Sky smiles softly at him.</p><p>“She seems like a wonderful person.” he says.</p><p>“She was.” Legend then laughs without humor as he says, “It’s almost like she was created just for me.”</p><p>The irony is lost on Sky, who asks in the quietest, most gentle voice Legend has ever heard him use, “What happened to her?”</p><p>Legend tilts his head back, eyes tracing the grain of the wooden beams overhead. “She was never real.” he confides in a broken whisper. “She was just a dream. Just like all the rest of them.”</p><p>He doesn’t look down, but he hears Sky moving around for a few moments before silence returns. For a moment, he thinks that Sky has left him alone to deal with this, and he can’t blame him even if it does sting a bit. But then Sky’s arms are around his shoulders, and a sob tears itself from his throat.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” Sky says. Legend just nods and brings his own arms up to squeeze Sky tight. The position isn’t comfortable for either of them, but neither breaks away for a long time.</p><p>“I still miss her.” Legend says into Sky’s shirt as the tears finally slow. “Even if she wasn’t real, I still loved her. And now I can never see her again.” The “and it’s all my fault” goes unspoken between them, and Sky’s “it’s okay” is only communicated through a tightening of his arms before he finally pulls away.</p><p>“You know, I once lost someone very close to me, as well.” Sky says. His hand reaches back as though to touch the hilt of a sword, but it falls to his side as he realizes that his back is bare. “It hurt me for a long time. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to move on.”</p><p>“Did you?” Legend asks, voice but a whisper but still full of so much hope.</p><p>“Not entirely, but enough.” Sky smiles, and there are no traces of sadness in the lines of his lips. “I still miss her, but it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that things will all be okay with time, because sometimes people don’t ever move on, and they go to their graves still feeling the loss of their youth and the youth of others.”</p><p>“Wow, very inspirational.” Legend drawls, and Sky flicks him on the nose as he levels him with a serious look.</p><p>“Time isn’t a remedy for everything,” Sky says, moving back to his seat, “but it is an aid for the process of healing. The other factor in recovery is your own mindset about things. If you believe that you can move on, if you try your hardest to make the memory of your friend into one of strength and don’t let the lessons that she taught you be tainted with the pain of loss, if you do your best to remember her as she was and not as what she could have been, it will be that much easier to carry on and live <em>with</em> the pain rather than in spite of it.”</p><p>“I’m ninety percent spite, you know.” Legend says, trying to lighten the mood, though his eyes are suspiciously wet.</p><p>“I know.” Sky laughs, but quickly sobers. “I’m not going to expect this little chat to just make all of your problems go away, and I know you won’t, either. But I do hope that it helped.”</p><p>Legend smiles genuinely at Sky in a way that feels far too vulnerable after hiding his pain for so long. “It did. Help, that is. I really appreciate it.”</p><p>“Good.” Sky nods. “And don’t you forget your friend, either. I know it probably hurts a lot to think about her, but you can’t just leave her behind. It wouldn’t be fair to either of you. She’s still here, in your memories, in your heart, in the things that remind you of her. So don’t just let her become a ghost, alright?” Not waiting for an answer, he stands up and stretches. “Now, it’s way past my bedtime, so I’m going off to sleep. Don’t stay up too late.”</p><p>“I won’t. Goodnight.”</p><p>“Night.”</p><p>Silence returns as Sky clambers into his assigned bed, and Legend realizes that Beedle and the manager had both gone to bed as well sometime during their talk. He sighs into the quiet, leaning back in his seat as he goes over what Sky had said.</p><p>Maybe he’s right. Maybe he can’t just expect that all of his wounds will be healed with nothing but time if he also keeps expecting that the pain will never go away. But Sky had also said that he still missed the person that he had lost, so maybe it wasn’t right to wish for that pain to be gone completely, either. If he could just find that middle ground between heartbreak and indifference, maybe he could find that the loss of Marin really wasn’t the end of the world. That he could keep on living so long as he kept her in his heart.</p><p>Maybe.</p><p>He spends a long few hours staring up at nothing as he tries to remember everything about Marin, from her hair to her love of birds to her songs, and he cries a little, but it doesn’t break him apart. Because he’s not forgetting her, not moving forward just to leave her behind. He’s holding her in his heart and keeping his love and his hope alive with the memory of her words.</p><p>The next time it rains, there’s still a pang in his chest, but it’s muted, dulled. He smiles as he feels the rain on his skin, and he laughs at something stupid Warriors says, and he thinks he might smell a hibiscus flower in the wind, but it’s okay. He gets Hyrule and Sky to come dance with him once they settle down to take a break, and the others eventually all come out to join them. He laughs, and he sings, and he finally feels at peace as he slips and falls flat on his ass in the mud because the others just smile and pick him right back up and he feels <em>alive.</em> It’s incredible.</p><p>He keeps on dancing and singing and smiling, and it's okay, because he finally knows that it’s what she would have wanted.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And that's that! Healing is not a linear process, and recovering from grief and loss is definitely a road with many twists and turns. However, that doesn't mean that healing is impossible, and with a little time and effort, you can get through it.</p><p>I hope you all liked this (especially you, cinnamontoastcronch, as this was your gift!). Let me know what you thought! I'm really proud of this one, and I think my message was able to come through :з</p><p>You're never alone, no matter how much you think you might be. There is always a light.</p><p>ALSO, I headcanon that Sky can't usually hear Fi in the sword because her voice and spirit were dampened over time so it would just be way too much effort for her to speak consistently, much less form her physical being. As such, it's like the Master Sword now only holds a piece of her spirit, and isn't nearly enough to replace the Fi that Sky had once lost, so he still mourns for her, even if that piece of her spirit does help him to carry on because he knows that she's never really left him or his future incarnations. It's a different kind of loss because it isn't total, but it definitely still hurts.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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